Tips & Tricks for Tracking Your German Russian Ancestors - Tip # 3 Sources, Sources, Sources...continued

Our goal is to find the Russian village from which our ancestors came.  If you need more help to track to who arrived first in the Americas, passenger lists can help.  While the list may or may not cite the actual village, it will tell you their last place of residence.


Any port can be a point of entry for our ancestors, but here are some of the most common ports with links to their records:

• Ellis Island
• Galveston
• Philadelphia
• Boston 1891-1943
• Canadian Library and Archives
• Argentina

Once you have located your ancestor, be sure to read the names and origination point for all of the passengers.  Our ancestors traveled with neighbors, friends and relatives soother travelers may provide valuable hints for future research.  Keep that resource log close at hand!

Our next stop will be sources in Russia. Stay tuned.

©2019 Anna Dalhaimer Bartkowski

Tips & Tricks to Track Your German Russian Ancestors - Tip # 3 Sources, Sources,Sources

There are so many sources for tracking our ancestors that we will split this topic into a number of  posts, so we can adequately cover sources both  in the Americas and in Russia.

Depending on when your ancestors came to the Americas  you may find that they spent more time here than in Russia. The research in the Americas is critical to filling out your ancestor's
milestones so you can work through each generation, and ultimately determine the Russian villa which they came.

How do you locate the relevant resources in America?  Here are some important sites to visit and track in your research log. Click on the link to go directly to the sites.

• The synopsis of How to Find Genealogy Records at Familysearch.org
• Links to all kinds of Genealogy Resources at Cyndi's List.
• Research databases available through Local Libraries (Check under research and learning at library sites) include
• Ancestry.com
• Gale Genealogy Connect
• Heritage Quest Online

Use your research log as you work through these sites.  Among the information you will discover include:

• Newspaper, City Directories
• US Federal Censuses, Land Records
• Birth, Marriage & Death Certificates
• Church Records
• Military Records
• Wills
• Find A Grave
• Naturalization Records which include port of arrival and birthplace
• Draft Registration
• Ancestry.com
• Familysearch.org - which includes Obituaries of Germans from Russia collected by the American Historical Society of German from Russia

An example of what you might find from a newspaper is pictured above. It's an article about Phillip Reimer, my great grandfather, 85th Birthday celebration in 1939.  It details the name, age and residence of everyone who attended. One of my favorite lines is, "A chicken dinner was served to members of the family at the home of Mrs. Fred Herzog." 

More Sources will follow soon!

©2019 Anna Dalhaimer Bartkowski

Tips & Tricks to Track Your German Russian Ancestors - Tip # 2 - Choose Your Path

As you become a genealogy gatherer, you need to make a choice. How are you going to track your family history and research? It's a key decision.

There are plenty of software programs such as:

• Legacy
• Roots Magic
• Family Tree Maker
• Roots Web
• Family Historian
• Microsoft Excel
• Ancestry
• Family Search

Whatever your choice, tracking your progress is essential.  If you are like me, you start your research with passion, but then life gets in the way....and later, when you find a stretch of time, you wonder, "Where did I leave off? Where are all of the loose ends on which I wanted to follow up?

The syndrome, from which I suffer, is known as ADGD...that is

"Attention Deficit Genealogy Disorder... 

It's when you start researching one ancestor

which causes you to bounce around to different ancestors 

only to end up doing a lot of work with very little to show for it."      

If you want to suffer from ADGD, recognize it is a choice. But, there is a cure...and it goes beyond your choice of software.  I prefer to track my discoveries on a research log.  A research log is essential to organized success. I like the one shown above from my Legacy software. It's easy to use, you fill in the blanks, cite your sources, dates found, and add your follow up notes all on one form.

As you start to track your discoveries, slowly ou can build your family tree like the one below.

One word of warning, as you research,  you will see lots of family trees online.  Some are extremely well done, others not so. To build as accurate a family tree as possible, "Make sure you're doing the research and not just sticking anyone into your family tree."

Stay tuned for Tip # 3 coming soon. 

©2019 Anna Dalhaimer Bartkowski

Tips & Tricks To Track Your German Russian Ancestors - Tip # 1 - Start With You

As you start your genealogical research, you need to start to think of yourself as a genealogy gatherer. You need to gather everything you can to help build your family history. The goal is to record your own personal milestones to create a timeline of your life, then  your parent's lives, then your grandparents' lives and so on.

Use every tool possible...

• Write down everything your remember,
• make notes about the history of an heirloom, 
• organize family recipes, 
• consolidate photographs and home movies to help resurrect memories and build detailed milestones.

Be sure to:

• Incorporate stories you have heard, things you believe,
• Anything you can remember about you and your family. 
• Include traditions and examples of what everyday life was like,
• Add Stories you have heard that you may or may not be able to verify. 

It's best to do this over time as trying to do it in one sitting is too challenging. It's truly an adventure of your lifetime to assimilate these details to build a full family history.

Perhaps you can ask cousins, aunts, uncles...there is usually someone in the family who has taken on the role of family record keeper.  You need to find them and become their favorite relative!

Everything is a clue which can help you build the milestones. Some of the stories may include things you family didn't want to talk about...and that's ok. Everyone has some sad stories and we all have at least one black sheep in the family.  Some of the most interesting stories are there.  And, after reviewing some of these stories, if you aren't certain who is the black sheep of your family, perhaps you need to consider that it might be you!

Stay tuned, as Tip #2 will be coming soon.

©2019 Anna Dalhaimer Bartkowski

Tips & Tricks to Track Your German Russian Ancestors ©Tip

Tips & Tricks to Track Your German Russian Ancestors ©

Tips & Tricks to Track Your German Russian Ancestors ©

Tip & Tricks Revisited...One By One...To Help You Track your Ancestors

Thanks to everyone who attended the "Tips and Tricks for Tracking Your German Russian Ancestors" yesterday at the Southeast Regional Gilbert Library.

Tracking family history ignites a passion to figure out who our ancestors were. And to understand their history requires curiosity, diligence and determination to uncover their story. As promised, I will update my blog with the tips and tricks over the next few weeks.

The "Tips & Tricks" sheet that was distributed yesterday provides you with a framework to build your family tree.  It lists all of the Tips, Tricks, website links, and books so you can search for clues for your family.  On this blog, we will revisit each point and also share the links to try to make your research a bit easier.

Before we dive into the Tips, lets review a proverb that defines what genealogy research is all about for me.

"Tell me the facts and I'll learn

Tell me the truth and I’ll believe.     

      But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”

– – Native American Proverb*

Along the way, we will find plenty of facts such as census records and passenger lists. Our journey will also include truth and beliefs, as recorded at that time. Most importantly our experience includes stories. I will share some of my German Russian family stories with you because, that's what brings our ancestry to life for me.  We'll start with Tip #1 in the next post.  See you then!

*Retrieved from https://elearningart.com/blog/elearning-quotes/.